Parents could be paying up as CBE proposes $8.9-million fee hike

Trevor Howell, Calgary Herald05.02.2014

Rhea Winters with her children, from left, Chloe, 12, Ryan, 8, and Gabrielle, 9. Winters is concerned over the proposed school fee hikes for this fall, which she estimates will cost her $400 more than last year for her two elementary school-aged children.

The city’s public school board is poised to balance its budget by, in part, hiking busing, lunch hour supervision and instructional supply fees almost $9 million over last year.

Faced with a $6-million funding gap and having drained its rainy day funds, the Calgary Board of Education will increase fees by $8.9 million this fall — a move sure to frustrate many parents.

While the budget still requires board approval later this month, fees are set to increase for noon hour supervision, busing, and instructional supplies and materials for most students in kindergarten to Grade 12.

For example, the five-day noon hour supervision will jump 27 per cent, from $220 to $280 for non-bused students, and 93 per cent, from $145 to $280 for students who are bused in to school.

Fess for instructional supplies and materials would remain flat for kindergarten ($15) and Grade 1 to 6 students ($30), but increase 30 per cent for Grade 7 to 9 students, from $105 to $137 and 15 per cent for high school students, from $132 to $152.

Parents who bus their kids to school would fork over more this fall, with bus fees projected to increase 12 per cent from $295 to $330 for Grade 1 to 12 student. The hike is more pronounced for kindergarten students, with bus fees set to increase 53 per cent, from $295 to $330.

For Rhea Winters, a single mom of three, news of the fee hikes sent her reeling. With two kids in elementary who ride the yellow school bus and require noon supervision, Winters would be billed about $1,280 for her two kids, about $400 more than last year.

“You can spread that out over 10 months, but I’ve started calling September and October ‘Cheque-tember’ and ‘Cheque-tober’,” Winters said. “We will be eating at home more and the little things that were the fun things just won’t be happening. And I’m already somebody that tries to squeeze 10 cents out of a nickel.”

According to the CBE, fees for noon supervision, busing and instructional materials accounted for roughly three per cent, or $36 million, of the board’s 2013-2014 budget.

Brad Grundy, chief financial officer for the CBE, said there is “not a lot of fat” in the system. Last month saw trustees approve a move to drain the remaining cash in its reserve funds.

“There’s nobody in the public system that wants to charge fees to parents for these kinds of things, but it’s a reality,” Grundy said.

He added the provincial funding model for metro school boards hasn’t been changed in five years and doesn’t account for the huge enrolment growth seen in recent years.

“The funding model for metro boards I don’t believe contemplated the utilization rates that we have in our schools, which means that we have to bus more,” Grundy said.

Board chair Sheila Taylor acknowledged the steep fee hikes would be challenging for many parents, particularly for those with several kids in the system.

“We have to balance every year where we’re spending our money and we have try to direct as much as possible toward classrooms,” Taylor said. “At the same time maintaining that balance for our parents and the fees they have to pay.

“We appreciate the hardship that many of them have to go through,” she added. “That’s one of the reasons why we offer waivers to low income families.”

The 2014-2015 budget will be presented to trustees at the May 6 meeting and approved later in the month before going to the province.

Trina Hurdman, trustee for Wards 6 and 7, said public education should not require parents to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars to send their kids to school.

“We have reached the point where the fees that we are charging to parents have just become too much of a burden on families,” Hurdman said. “When it costs $600 to go to school I’m hearing from people that they no longer consider this public education.”

Hurdman said she will ask her board colleagues to rethink how fees are calculated at the May 6 meeting. She said the CBE’s waiver program works well, but she doesn’t want to see it funded through fees.

The CBE’s current fee system accounts for waivers and unpaid fees. In 2012-2013, the board budgeted for $2.9 million in unpaid and waived fees. The proposed 2014-2015 budget projects that amount to be $3.9 million.

“So basically we’re asking a certain subset of parents to pay for parents who cannot pay their fees,” she said. “It creates a vicious cycle. The higher we make the fees the more parents can’t pay them and we have to raise them more to pay for the parents who aren’t paying fees.”

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